Completely baffling and almost utterly inept, Switch would be bad enough to be good if it didn’t take itself so completely seriously. Ostensibly a heist picture, multi-hyphenate Jay Sun strings together what he may have thought were a series of really cool set pieces that never connect coherently. More reminiscent of a cheesy 1980s cop show than a thriller, the random action sequences and subtitle howlers (not seen since that same decade) start early and never let up. Not even Hong Kong movie star Andy Lau will be able to help Switch’s commercial prospects, which are dire in any territory with taste if the speed at which it vanished from cinemas is any indication.

As can best be determined by gaping plot holes, shoddy editing and illogical narrative construction, Switch revolves around Interpol supercop/spy/thief (it’s never really clear) Xiao Jinhan (Andy Lau) and his quest to get his hands on a priceless Yuan Dynasty painting, one of three that — it seems — an American gangster, a British art collector, a Chinese dowager thug type and a Japanese wannabe Yakuza, Yamamoto (Tong Dawei, American Dreams in China) with serious Oedipal issues, are also looking for. Jinhan has several girlfriends who help him with either his spying or his thieving depending on the girl, among them Lisa (Lin Chiling, Red Cliff), who’s dead but then not and his Hong Kong cop wife Lin Yuyuan (Zhang Jingchu, Peacock), who has absolutely no jurisdiction over the crime. At one point Switch changes focus to concentrate on Jinhan’s reform; the film implies he has a tainted past, but what that might be remains a mystery. Also a mystery? Why Yuyuan stays married to Jinhan when he makes it clear he has no intention of ending his womanizing ways. Oh, there’s also a kidnapping.

Switch was released in two versions, one for Mainland China and one for Hong Kong, and word on the street is that the hatchet job done on the Hong Kong print made the story even more confusing than the widely lampooned Mainland one; the extra details would not have helped. Writer-producer-director Sun directs his feature debut like a film school drop-out with too much cash; he’s clearly got some to play with — locations Dubai and Bahamas came out of the alleged $26 million budget — but zero grasp on story or how to direct actors. Characters come and go, plot threads materialize out of nowhere to no purpose (Who was the little girl in the village? What’s with the all-girl ninja army?). The big moments that should leave an impression consistently fall flat — like Lisa and Yuyuan’s throwdown. When one runs the other through with a sword Roc Chen’s score swells and crashes — and the audience remains deathly, tellingly silent.

While the James Bond franchise has started to focus on character development and serious acting, China’s entry into the international espionage market, Switch, gets back to basics with an army of sexy female assassins guarding an invincible villain, futuristic electronics used without budget worries and the world’s most expensive branded cars and hotels – plus a great deal of acrobatic kung fu.

As directed by producer-turned-filmmaker Jay Sun Jianjun, the overall effect is more retro camp than cutting edge, accounting for the critical beating the film has taken since its June 7 release. Yet the film’s detractors have caused few injuries at the box office: the movie soared to the top until being deposed by Man of Steel this weekend. The reason is probably that, in spite of its far-fetched plotting, blatant product placement, outré characters and set design, etc., Switch is still an amusing, well-produced two-hour romp through Asia and the Middle East with jaw-dropping set pieces filmed in Dubai, China and Tokyo.

The movie can also bank on the power of craggy-faced Hong Kong superstar Andy Lau, who at 51 has lost none of his charismatic screen appeal. In the role of a larger-than-life secret agent whose mission, entrusted to him by the mysterious “F,” is to unite two halves of a priceless scroll in time for an international shindig, he references not only 007 (evident from the opening credits onward) but also Tom Cruise’s skyscraper stunts in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, all in an Asian martial arts idiom.

The action begins in Dubai, where a nasty band of British evil-doers plans to steal an ancient scroll long ago torn into two parts. One half is stored in an art museum in China, the other in Taiwan, and they are to be officially reunited in a joint Chinese-Taiwanese exhibition which serves as a background countdown to the action. Competing for the treasure is the main villain of the piece, the young Japanese yakuza boss Yamamoto (Tong Daiwei), sporting a long blond pony-tail and living in a gadget- and girl-filled mansion that would make Goldfinger feel the need to redecorate.

Though the Taipei museum looks like the Fortress of Solitude, it’s child’s play for the Brits’ radio-controlled drone to open the roof like a can-opener, deactivate the sensors and make the heist. Yamamoto’s squadron of acrobatic women in black catsuits also turn up on ropes, but they are temporarily defeated. Interpol agent Xiao Jinhan (Lau) and Lin Yuyan (Zhang Jingchu), the agent for a global insurance company who happens to be his attractive wife and the mother of his son Baobao, are in charge of retrieving the missing half of the scroll and safeguarding the one in China.

The first stop is a lavish banquet thrown by a disturbing old lady called the Empress (Siqin Gaowa), who is also interested in the painting and who offers to help Yamamoto. But instead of following her, agent Xiao is ordered by F to fly to Dubai, where he will be working with a glamorous new partner, Lisa (Lin Chiling). In spite of Xiao’s chaste wedded state, she serves as his chief love interest. Xiao gallantly solves the issue with the memorable line, “My heart is fully booked, but my body is still taking reservations.” Still he nobly resists Lisa’s charms, which Lin takes beyond seduction to hint at a bit of real feeling for the guy. In comparison, in the fairly thankless role of Xiao’s wife, sensitive actress Zhang Jingchu feels more like a police teammate as she fights by his side in an emergency.

Interestingly, there are no on-camera sex scenes in the film; even Yamamoto’s perverted taste for Oedipal S&M with a giant portrait of his mother hovering in the background is conveyed through suggestive costumes and poses.

Writer-director Sun has a playful feeling for kitsch and alternates the traditional Chinese elegance of Hangzhou and Fuyang with Dubai landmarks like the Burj Al Khalifa building and the Burj Al Arab and Atlantis Palm luxury hotels, the site of an anthology-worthy car chase through the hotel that has to be seen to be believed. The Disneyland-like style of the Middle Eastern locations jives perfectly with the film’s basic pop aesthetic of decadence and hedonism. In this vein, the near-constant display of the female body in cheesy, barely-there costumes seems aimed at getting a laugh as much as titillating the audience. But in the long run, the over-abundance of deadly beauties in stiletto heels and transparent mini-skirts pulls down the quality considerably, even in the finely choreographed fight scenes credited to Robert Francis Brown and Zhang Peng.

June 21, 2013

With its gravity-defying stunts and logic-resistant plot twists, its kinky couture and kinkier sex, “Switch” dishes out splashy thrills so indiscriminately, it winds up feeling like a theme park with more distractions than attractions. Sending a star-studded cast of actors from Hong Kong, Taiwan and China on a globetrotting adventure to snatch an antique scroll, mainland helmer Jay Sun’s blockbuster is eye-popping but also a bit of an eyesore; it epitomizes the kind of so-bad-it’s-good kitsch that will sill well in genre ancillary. Pic opened strong on the mainland despite abysmal word of mouth, and only the complete absence of self-parody will prevent it from achieving cult status. Vociferous criticism on China’s microblogs have ironically raised the film’s profile.

To Western auds, “Switch” may suggest a cheesy knockoff of the “Mission: Impossible” and James Bond series, though Sun’s anything-goes script boasts a smattering of Asian influences, from Bollywood to the art-theft subgenre exemplified by Korean helmer Park Hee-kon’s “The Insadong Mysteries” (2009) to Hong Kong Interpol adventures like Jingle Ma’s “Tokyo Raiders” (2000). In fact, it’s best viewed as a flashier, tackier companion piece to the “Naked” series scripted and produced by Wong Jing.

Sun, who studied music and photography in the U.S., contributed to the first wave of contempo mainland romantic comedies by producing the popular “Call for Love” (2007) and its 2008 sequel, “Fit Lover.” The ragtag style in “Switch” echoes the omnibus structure of those two films while further indulging the director’s glossy tendencies. The flashy, tacky result comes close to flirting with camp, although it ultimately takes itself too seriously to work as pure escapism.

In Dubai, operators of a British smuggling ring hit on the idea of stealing the precious Yuan Dynasty painting “Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains” by Huang Gongwang. During the Ming Dynasty, the scroll was ripped in two halves, now kept separately in Taipei’s National Palace Museum and Hangzhou’s Zhejiang Art Museum. But another has designs on the artwork: Toshio Yamamoto (Tong Dawei), the grandson of a Japanese general who died trying to steal it during WWII. He dispatches his foxy assassins to nab the Taipei half of the painting, but the Brits beat them to it.

Hong Kong special agent Xiao Jinhan (Andy Lau) receives orders to retrieve the stolen piece for a state ceremony that will be held to rejoin the two halves. Incidentally, his wife, Yuyan (Zhang Jingchu), is an insurance company executive assigned to guard the painting’s other half in the Zhejiang Art Museum; she does so by installing a security device that can also microwave popcorn. Yamamoto heads to Hangzhou to meet “the Empress” (Siqin Gaowa), a freakier female version of Fu Manchu, who promises to procure the scroll. Meanwhile, Xiao teams up with Agent Lisa (Lin Chi-ling) but Yamato’s rollerblading babes prove a menace.

The film’s English title is apt, as not only does the painting get switched many times, but the characters change identities, allegiances and locations with abandon. From a fencing match that breaks all rules of continuity to “Mission: Impossible”-style peel-off masks, “Switch” is littered with so many hokey “what was that about?” moments that making sense of the plot becomes a pointless exercise, a problem exacerbated by choppy editing. And for all the brouhaha about the titular painting, there’s not even one closeup of it.

Lau gives his all to the role of tough action hero and suave romantic lead, while Zhang’s attempts to retain her dignity as a kickass agent and loving wife are compromised by the titillating French-maid costume she has to wear constantly. Lin seldom convinces as a leading lady, rehashing the decorative poses that got her through a recent spate of romantic comedies.

Tong clearly relishes subverting his upstanding-character persona as Yamamoto, a peroxide-blond criminal whose sadomasochism and raging Oedipal complex are traits rarely explored in mainstream mainland films. Indeed, in his sendup of Japonaiserie, Sun almost seems to be trying to outdo Takashi Miike’s V-cinema period or Nikkatsu’s Sushi Typhoon series; the action scenes involving Yamamoto are borderline racist and proudly sexist with their sleazily dressed femmes, nasty violence and garish sets.

The fight sequences, designed by Robert Francis Brown and Zhang Peng, are so on-the-nose that they have a certain wackiness, especially those set in Dubai’s Burj Al Arab Hotel. Shao Dan and action lenser Don McCuaig handled the swooping camerawork, lending an opulent sheen to their long shots of city skylines and lush lakeside imagery. Roc Chen’s score makes showy use of classical music, especially excerpts from Elgar’s Cello Concerto, to enigmatic but unvaried effect. The film was released in China as a 3D conversion, but the version caught in Hong Kong was in 2D, with nine minutes trimmed from the mainland original.

After setting a new box office record with a total of 685 million yuan (US$ 107.1 million), the production side of the movie “Painted Skin 2″ held a celebration party yesterday in Shanghai [on a luxury cruise ship].

With an investment of over 160 million yuan (about US$26 million), the movie was originally set to be released during the National Day Holiday slot. According to Zhang, in order to set aside enough time for the 3D effect team, they had postponed the movie’s release to November.

Stephen Fung’s “Tai Chi 0″ will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival August 31. Angelababy and Eddie Peng will help to promote in Venice according to reports.

Martial arts flick “The Four” kicked out “Painted Skin: The Resurrection” to sit in the top spot with a surprisingly $11.13 million in its second week of release for a two-week total of $24.16 million. “Painted Skin: The Resurrection” ended its fourth week of release to number two of the boxoffice chart, adding $9.13 million for a total of $109.15 million. Those figures put “Painted Skin: The Resurrection” officially to become the highest grossing domestic movie at all time, taking the boxoffice record from “Let the Bullet Fly” (2010), which grossed a total of $101.37 million in mainland China.

The 135-minute film features a gang of South Korean thieves who team up with a Hong Kong crew to steal a diamond necklace from a heavily-guarded casino safe in Macau. As the cops close in, old betrayals — and misunderstandings — resurface.

Kun Liu was killed during a stunt in Bulgaria in October 2011 while performing in a rubber boat on Ognyanovo dam, just outside the capital, Sofia. He died after suffering wounds from a nearby explosion.

Asked what she thought of being dubbed ‘Box Office Poison’ after her recent films bombed at the box office, the actress said, “As an actress, as long as I do my part and work hard to showcase myself, ticket sales are not the most important.”

May 25, 2012

At the news conference, Gordon Chan revealed that the second and the third installments are set to kick off shooting soon, a move to complete the trilogy. The cast and crew of the coming films have already arrived at the Hengdian Film Base located in Zhejing Province, prepared for the new projects.

In the following interactive sessions with the audience and the press, producer Chen said he was surprised and yet honored by the full attendance and positive response, adding that the film was still in post production and the version for Cannes had been edited in a hurry.

“The Avengers” reigned supreme in mainland theaters for the third week in a row

On the local films side, renowned director Ning Hao’s new entry “Guns N’ Roses” surged past the $23.85million mark over four weeks of release, maintaining its domination over all other domestic titles.

Lou Ye’s return to sanctioned film-making in China is anything but an artistic or thematic compromise… It’s rare to see an official Chinese movie that takes such a stark look at life today. Set in the rain-drenched city of Wuhan, Lou shows us an urban world of web and text-obsessed people, fast cars, designer fashions and Starbucks that could be any western city.

Yip will be travelling to the US and Europe to scout for 3D technicians and expertise to shoot the film, as well as exploring Asia where 3D production standards are rising. He hopes to start production in December for release at the end of 2013.

The film tells the story of a crocodile on the rampage in Beijing. Barbie Hsu and Guo Tao portray the film’s leading roles while Lin Lisheng, who previously shot “A Disappearing Village”, took the helm as the project’s director.

Recently, it was reported that Liu Xiao Ling Tong would star in a film adaptation of Journey to the West, potentially cooperating with well-know directors James Cameron, Steven Spielberg and others. Liu Xiao Ling Tong has confirmed this on his microblog.

Local films faced tough challenges in a market strewn with Hollywood titles that certainly threaten their survival. “Guns N’ Roses”was the only release that earned a decent return of $9.6million this week, bringing its gross over 14-days in release to $20.07million. The remaining local titles suffered relatively meager box office.

The producers behind the absurd romantic comedy “Let it Be” have released three character posters featuring three lead actors Joan Chen, Van Fan and Song Jinxiao. The film is expected to release during the summer holiday slot.

In other related news, according to a netizen’s tip-off, Gong Li was seen consciously hiding her tummy at the 2nd China-France Film Festival on May 14 and looked visibly tired. The actress, who is dating and living with a French photographer, 13 years her junior, for the past six years, is speculated to be pregnant.

The scandal revolves around wealthy 62-year-old Hong Kong businessman Lau Ding Sing, who is currently on trial for acquiring about 60,000 photos (some of them through intimidation) of a number of men - including a few actors and models - in various states of undress, and allegedly using these photos to blackmail some of these men into submitting to his will.

The film wraps with Ann Hui’s My Way - starring Francis Ng and Jade Leung - about a pre-op transsexual man nervously waiting for his operation. It is a stylishly melancholic film, and defined by the moment when he goes to the hospital for the operation, goes to sleep in the male ward (next to a newspaper reading old man) and wakes as a woman in the female ward…and finally indulging in a smile of relief and happiness.

“I am rather disappointed by Vincent Zhao’s words,” Yen said. “If I had made a mistake, it would have been my insistence in casting him in the movie. I have no energy to entangle myself in this issue. My lawyer has started on the case.”